Blogorrhea Junior

Bronx Voices!

If you've been wondering where I am, this is what I've been up to. I've got two poems in this show, and have been doing the producing and stage managing for it. If you're in the neighborhood, please come! It's FREE!

Take the 1,2,3 Train to 116 or 125th and walk a block west of Broadway to Claremont Avenue. Come right in the revolving doors to see some really riveting material, hear some blues, and be uplifted. Hope to see you there! And have I mentioned it's FREE?

Happy Birthday Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, songwriter extraordinaire, turns 65 today. I first discovered her on the Detroit AM radio station CKLW with "Free Man in Paris" from Court and Spark in 1974 when I was 14. It's been true love ever since. Her musical experiments helped introduce me to jazz and to a far more eclectic range of music than I might have known until far later. She did everything: folk, rock, jazz, country, all of it loaded with off-kilter rhythm and quirky instrumental arrangements. She didn't have Judy Collins' pure, ethereal voice, but she had something just as interesting: a kind of smoky warble that inclined to minor keys.

If there were one song that sums up my fascination with art, with New York, with my motives for moving here and the way I've structured my life, it would be Joni Mitchell's "The Boho Dance." Although it's an ironic look at the hip crowd and their contempt for the squares, it had its own strange sort of mocking appeal that made both the grit and the glamor of New York romantically attractive. Of course, real life is never like our dreams imagine it to be, but I'm happy to say that I've found a bit of my own Boho Dance here without the absolute squalor that often accompanies it. I guess the cleaner's press was in my jeans, too. Happy birthday, Joni. Thanks for the inspiration.

Famous in France

My extremely talented friend Peri Lyons is singing again! If you're in NYC around the end of August/early September, catch her show, Famous in France, at the Metropolitan Room. Peri is an amazing singer/songwriter/performer who does songs that are not your typical cabaret. She's funny, smart, beautiful, has a great voice and can play your emotions like a piano with her songs. And as Peri says, "Besides, what other cabaret show is going to bring you songs sung from  the viewpoint of the Marquis de Sade's wife?" Don't miss her.

Rubin Museum of Art

A couple of weeks ago, I finally stopped in at the Rubin Museum of Art, as I was in the neighborhood anyway and had some free time. It's a beautiful little museum (emphasis on little: totally doable in a few hours, even if you're dawdling) It's a brand new building with six floors and a spiral staircase in the middle of it, so I started at the top and worked my way down. As you might guess, the art of Himalayas, which is what the Rubin concentrates on, is mostly religious, both Buddhist and Hindu, but there's also currently a photographic exhibit called "Nepal in Black and White" that I'd like to go back to as well, and the bookstore stocks a number of photographic essay collections about the region. There's also a theatre, a spacious cafe, and the requisite museum store (which has some  nice Nepalese paper for you book arts people).

I got there a bit late so I only had two hours to go through it and spent the most time on the top floor, in "Earthly Immortals: Arhats in Tibetan Painting" (right, from the Rubin Museum). Unlike most museum exhibits, there's a lot of informative text on the walls with these exhibits, explicating the paintings, the region, the traditions, and gently teaching you how to "read" the iconography. Since I know next to zip about Buddhist or Hindu iconography, this was really helpful. The painting was all, throughout the museum, absolutely exquisite, most of it on silk hangings, but some on paper, but the arhat paintings really wowed me. Since these  paintings were heavily influenced by Chinese arhat paintings, there were some representatives of the Chinese work, too. The colors and detail, the composition, the whimsy (a monk-attendant peeping through the doors to the arhat's paradise, the expression of astonishment on the face of an arhat who sees a full-grown dragon coming out of his begging bowl, the bushy eyebrows of another), the sheer skill in some of the paintings is just breathtaking. One particular ink drawing was so delicate that it gave me chills.

I breezed through the rest of the floors, but there were still some standouts: in particular, the "black" paintings in "Red, Black, and Gold" which were of powerful and scary gods, painted with black pigment made from the ashes from charnal houses, and historically often restricted from public view.  After looking at a couple of them, you can see why. They're chilling too, in a completely different way, though the ones at the Rubin were far scarier than those in the link above. There is also, as might be expected, a lot of sculpture of religious figures in brass and copper, and a lovely wooden Buddha head. The sculpture—or at least the cast metal sculpture—for some reason (probably my iconoclastic Protestant background) fails to move me the same way the paintings do.

I didn't eat at the cafe on the first floor, but it's a pleasant, open space, and the museum shop has a lot of fun stuff in it, including clothing, jewelry, and a great book selection. I picked up an exciting poetry anthology from Norton called Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from The Middle East, Asia and Beyond. It's been a while since I bought a new poetry book, so this was a double treat, because I know so few of the poets in it and a couple of them more as fiction writers than poets.

All in all, definitely worth a look (especially for $10, which is the adult admission fee) and worth going back to.

White Rabbit Syndrome

As you've no doubt noticed, the book arts posts have been pretty slim around here of late. I promise to change that, soon. I wrote most of April's posts a month ahead of time, but have been doing May's very piece-meal, which means I've been writing what I know for the last month, the result of which is you get a lot of posts about writing, not so many about book arts.

The truth is, the book arts posts, though short, take a lot of time to research, if I want to make them interesting and substantive and not just repeat what everyone else is posting. So it involves combing through both numerous Google alerts, and my ever-growing list of blogs, something that can easily take most of the day, then writing the artist for permission to use an image, and learning more about them. This weekend (Memorial Day here in the States) I plan to spend some time in the evenings catching up on my reading and flagging stuff to write about. I'm equally backed up on my emails. But in addition, I have readings for my upcoming class to plan and syllabi to finish, and, and, and . . .

You get the idea.

This makes me feel a bit like Lewis Carroll's White Rabbit: "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Fortunately, most of the book arts stuff I tend to write about isn't time sensitive. I just have to sound like I know what I'm talking about. You know, it's said that the best way to know something is to have to teach it, and it's true. I'm continually getting a good education in book arts and techniques by writing about it here.

"So remember what the Dormouse said: 'Feed your head! Feed your head!'"

Tonight! Live Poetry at the Bowery Poetry Club

It's National Poetry Month, remember? So get used to the poetry-related posts here for April (don't worry, I haven't entirely forgotten book and paper arts.)

Tonight at the Bowery Poetry Club are the alumni of Urban Word NYC, slam and spoken word performance at its best. And if you'd like to get involved yourself, after watching these inspiring performances, Urban Word offers workshops that are free for teens, including (and here's the book arts connection):

**Spoken INC with Tahani Salah and Tara Betts
Mondays, March 17-May 26 4:30 – 6:30

You asked for it! You wanted help putting together a collection of work? Well Urban Word NYC has answered your calls. We'll cover basic bookmaking concepts, layout, short writing exercises and editing so participants can create their own chapbooks with individualized artistry. We will have opportunities for you to be published in anthologies and online contests. This workshop will also include multiple special guests from slam champions to rock stars of the writing world that will talk about their experiences in publishing.

See?  Poetry and book arts go together like milk and Oreos. Or lime and tequila. Go sample some tonight.

The Real Things

Since sleep is eluding me once again, I thought I might as well catch up on some posts here. I've got a giant backlog of things I want to write about and haven't been at my computer much lately. But I had such a great time Friday night that I wanted to share it here. Ellis Avery (of Tea & Croquet fame) gave a reading of her novel The Teahouse Fire, at the Asia Society, followed by an interview and a tea ceremony demo. The reading was great, unsurprisingly. Ellis has studied tea, the Japanese language, and lived in Japan for just under a year, all of which inform her novel. One of the things that makes it interesting is that it's based on a historical character who managed to wrest the monopoly on tea ceremony out of men's hands (traditionally, the tea masters were all men) and make it part of women's school curricula. I'm really enjoying the book, and hearing Ellis read and talk about the book's genesis and inspiration just whetted my appetite for more.

Seeing a real tea ceremony was an added bonus, as it's something I've always wanted to do. There were some concessions made to location, of course, mostly that there was no hearth. Two members of the audience acted as guests while a demonstrator (whose name, horribly, I have forgotten, even though I spoke to her afterwards) from Cha-An Teahouse who is also a student at the Urasenko Chanoyu Center. I've read a lot about Cha-no-yu (literally "hot water for tea") and watched a number of videos like this one, but seeing it live is another matter. I would love to see it in a real tea house, which have their own special architecture and decoration and landscaping, all of which are part of the full ceremony. But it was so lovely to be able to watch someone perform the ceremony and see the delicacy of the movements. It's choreographed really, like a dance, and equally graceful. The video above only gives you a pale image of what it's really like to watch.

While I was waiting to meet Gretl and Christine, I took a walk through The Asia Society exhibit, "Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860," which includes not only examples of erotic art, but paintings of Kabuki and Noh scenes and actors. There are some really stunning woodblocks and silk scroll paintings. Two of my favorites of the latter was a Chinese dragon in the clouds with a koto, and the wonderful black carp at the left. But what I was really excited to see was an original print of Hokusai's "The "Great Wave off Kanagawa." I've seen this a million times in reproductions; it's one of my favorites and so popular that it's almost a cliche now. Seeing the real thing completely dispels any jadedness you might have about it though. The colors are so vivid, and yet somehow softened by time so they're not garish but not faded either, and the workmanship on the blocks is astonishingly delicate. It's so sharp you can feel the spray. It has a liveliness that reproductions will never have. The same is true of the other ukiyo-e and paintings. They're all delightful, so much so that I'm going back again. The exhibit runs through May 4th. It's $10 to get in, free on Fridays from 6-9.

And while we're on about Japanese paper art, thanks to Cerebral Rose for the heads up about Canon's pages and pages of print-your-own origami paper and scrapbook stuff. There are some gorgeous chiyogami and patterns for origami too. Just to prove how ubiquitous "The Great Wave" is, there's even a 3-D decoupage kit of it at this site too, that you can also download, along with instructions, for free.

And finally, there's the Rainbow In Your Hand (click for larger image) from Utrecht, via Arctic Oak. 

But you know, it's never going to be like the real thing, either.

Eat for Charity

This isn't a food blog, by any means, but I do love it when two of my passions collide and even better, when they support each other. And it's so much less work to eat for charity than those walk-a-thons and 10 K runs. If you'd like to do well by doing good in a completely painless way, go to the Mermaid Inn on Sunday night and order a meal. That's it. 5% of the Mermaid's Sunday night take goes to the micro-finance organization Kiva.org. When loans are repaid, the money is reinvested. Kiva.org supports many kinds of entrepreneurial projects, including handicrafts, in developing countries, so you're supporting your fellow crafters as well as getting absolutely one of the best seafood meals in the city. What's not to love?

And how's the food? While I am by no means an expert on the New England lobster roll (it's all fresh water where I come from), the one at the Mermaid is heavenly. The other night, Helen and I had possibly the best piece of salmon I've ever had, with a creamy fig risotto. The teeny cup of chocolate pudding that's your only choice of desert is just right. And the little fortune-telling fish you get at the end are pretty funny too. The beer list is heavy on New England microbrews (I usually go for the Fisherman's Tale). The service is expert and friendly, the atmosphere is casual (think slightly overgrown clam shack), and the food, even if it's not fish, is great (roasted pear and arugula salad with toasted almond slivers and tiny globes of goat cheese: yum!).

[Thanks to Manhattan Users Guide for the heads-up.]

And Sometimes I Really Hate It . . .

. . . the way this city operates, that is. For a city that prides itself on its artists and artistic offerings, it's a hell of a hard place to be an artist. Housing and studio space are ridiculously, often prohibitively expensive. Since the artists first colonized the former manufacturing spaces in SoHo in the 70's and real estate people figured out that was such a cool idea, affordable renovated or even raw loft space is impossible to come by; it's all being turned into luxury condos. And most art takes space. I have a friend who's a painter and one of the major things that's stalling her career is lack of space. Imagine coughing up $1300-$2000/month for your housing and another $500-$1500/month for space to set up your easel, store your paints and canvases and the other paraphernalia of art, and finding a space that has enough of the right kind of light. If you have to take a second or a high-powered job to pay for space or supplies to do your art, when are you supposed to find the time and energy for it?

Now Flux Factory, one of the pioneering artists' communes in the city, is losing its space near the Sunnyside Yards, thanks to the MTA. Bad enough they had to hide the true nature of the space from building inspectors because of the zoning. Now they'll be homeless. I have a soft spot for Flux Factory since they accepted and sold a copy of Stories From the Ruins in one of their fund-raising auctions a couple of years ago, and since I met a couple of the denizens, Morgan Meis and Stefany Goldberg, through 3 Quarks Daily's S. Abbas Raza, all of whom are doing exciting work in their own fields. There's a nice cross-pollination between Flux Factory and 3 Quarks that I would hate to see come to an end.

Flux Factory bills itself as "a not for profit arts organization supporting innovation in things," which just about covers it. Their exhibits tend to be large installations of collective art, from a room-sized musical instrument run on pickle power (see YouTube video below), to NYNYNY, a multimedia collaboration with more than 100 artists from all five boroughs whose theme is "the forgotten past and the fantastic future all at once. A New York City where anything is possible." Flux Factory has always been closely engaged with the city around it, so it's doubly betraying that that city is now evicting it.

And why? Ironically, for a project my old employer helped clear the way for, the East Side Access project, which would connect the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal. The problem with living in a city as densely packed as New York is that for somebody to win (commuters in this case) somebody has to lose. In all, East Side Access is a good thing, and will hopefully help some of the congestion NYC suffers from by making it easier for LI commuters who work on the east side to get to their jobs, making taking the train more attractive. But just ripping the rug out from under a well-established, important arts organization, without help or compensation, is just wrong, regardless of how good the cause is. 

I know Flux Factory had been looking for new space already, so I'm hoping the city will do the right thing and help them out. It'd be nice to see some artists catch a break in New York for a change.

Freeze, Sucka!

I love the wacky crap that goes on here. And here's some major wackiness in one of my favorite places in the city: Grand Central Terminal, center of the Known Universe.

I mean, where else could you do this?

[Via Core77 Design Blog]